FROM TEILHARD DE CHARDIN

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He that will believe only what he can

fully comprehend must have a long head

or a very short creed.

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We are not human beings having a

spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings

having a human experience.

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Love is a sacred reserve of energy;

it is like the blood of spiritual evolution.

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Growing old is like being increasingly

penalized for a crime you haven't committed. 
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By means of all created things, without exception,
the divine assails us, penetrates us and moulds us.
We imagined it as distant and inaccessible,
whereas in fact we live steeped in its burning layers.
In eo vivimus.  As Jacob said, awakening from his dream,
the world, this palpable world, to which we brought
the boredom and callousness reserved for profane places,
 is in truth a holy place, and we did not know it.
Venite, adoremus. 

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Chardin (1881-1955) was a paleontologist, geologist,

philosopher, Catholic priest, and, unfortunately,

a Jesuit. He was too advanced, intellectually

and spiritually, for the small-minded morons

in Rome. Many of his writings were denied

publication. He was treated basically as

a heretic, a traitor to tradition, dogma,

and infallibility.

It was incredibly high-handed, born of ignorance

and a type of ecclesiastical stupidity that seems

to run deep at the Vatican, as well as among

the Jesuits, who, with all of their intellectual

arrogance and pride, were blind to the

fact that in their midst was a true genius.

This man was talking and writing about

God and the universe in a way that some

readers of THE URANTIA BOOK might

find familar in many respects.

But the Pope and the "Doctrine" slaves

at the Vatican, with the cooperation of the

good Jesuit Fathers, these Sons of St. Ignatius

of Loyola, a mystic and seeker not

unlike Chardin in many respects,

stepped on him.

He was silenced.
Friends had his books published after his death.

The Jesuits: the Pope's "little soldiers,"

the "black-robed CIA" as they're often called,

the dogma defenders,

the losers, remnants of the past.

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Read about the man:http://www.teilharddechardin.org/

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The day will come when, after harnessing space,
the winds, the tides, gravitation, we shall harness
for God the energies of love. And, on that day,
for the second time in the history of the world,
humankind will have discovered fire.

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EGYPTIAN PRAYER AND THE AFTERLIFE

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As it was in every ancient religion

(including those of the Greeks, Romans, and

Hebrews before the 8th century B.C.) polytheism

was taken for granted in ancient Egypt, for which

we have very extensive and detailed records.

During the period from about 2700 to 2200 B.C.,

for example, the Egyptian kings themselves were

worshipped as sons of the sun god. But from

2000 B.C., there is clear evidence of monotheism:

Amon was regarded as the one supreme deity,

and when one ruler addressed a spontaneous

hymn to Amon, his prayer was set down
 in hieroglyphs:

 "Creator, Maker, Giver of breath -

how manifold are your works, O sole God,

whose power no other possesses. You created

the earth according to your heart."

Egyptians also offered morning and

evening prayer to Amon.

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Along with the tendency toward monotheism,

there was a conviction about the afterlife.

The Papyrus of Ani, which can be dated to

about 1250 B.C., is a major extant portion

of the texts now collectively known as the

Egyptian Book of the Dead; it contains hymns

and invocations interred with the deceased

and intended to guide them safely to the

beyond. A typical prayer for mercy was

addressed, for example, to 
"My Shining One,
 who dwells in the Mansion of Images...

O Preeminent one...may you grant me life...

O my father, my brother, my mother -

Isis! I shall cross to the Mansion of him

who finds faces, the collector of souls...

And I will not die again in God's domain...

I give you praise, O Lord of the gods."

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Perhaps nowhere are the traditions of

prayerful acts discerned more clearly

than in this ancient conviction that life

endures beyond the grave, a conviction

to which the pyramids remain a grand and

silent witness.

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From In Silence - Why We Pray

by Donald Spotto

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THE SACREDNESS OF HONOR

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A sense of honor pervades all aspects

of Indian life.

Orphans and the aged are invariably

cared for, not only by their next of kin,

but by the whole clan. The man who is

a skillful hunter, and whose wife is alive

to her opportunities, makes many feasts,

to which he is careful to invite the older men

of his clan. He recognizes that they have

outlived their period of greatest activity,

and now love nothing so well as to eat

in good company and live over their past.

He sets no price upon either his property

or his labor. His generosity is limited only

by his strength. He regards it as an honor

to be selected for a difficult or dangerous

service, and would think it a shame to ask

for any other reward, saying rather:

"Let those I serve express their thanks

according to their own upbringing and

sense of honor."

He is always ready to undertake the

impossible, or to impoverish himself

for the sake of a friend.

Where the other person is regarded

more than the self, duty is sweeter and

more inspiring, patriotism more sacred,

and friendship is a pure and eternal bond.

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Charles Alexander Eastman

(Ohiyesa) Santee Sioux

The Soul of the Indian, 1911

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PSALM 133

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Oh, how good and pleasant it is,

when brethren live together in unity!

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It is like fine oil upon the head

that runs down upon the beard,

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Upon the beard of Aaron,

and runs down upon the collar of his robe.

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It is like the dew of Hermon

that falls upon the hills of Zion.

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For there the Lord has ordained the blessing:

life for evermore.

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THE COSMIC DANCE

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What is serious to men is often very

trivial in the sight of God. What in God

might appear to us as "play" is perhaps

what God takes the most seriously.

At any rate the Lord plays in the garden of

creation, and if we could let go of our own

obsession with what we think is the meaning

of it all, we might be able to hear God's call

and follow in the mysterious, cosmic dance.

We do not have to go very far to catch echoes

of that game, and of that dancing. When we

are alone on a starlit night; when by chance we

see the migrating birds in autumn descending

on a grove of junipers to rest and eat; when

we see children in a moment when they are

really children; when we know love in our

own hearts; or when, like the Japanese poet

Basho, we hear an old frog land in a quiet

pond with a solitary splash - at such times

the awakening, the turning inside out of

all values, the "newness," the emptiness

and the purity of vision that make

themselves evident, provide a

glimpse of the cosmic dance.

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Thomas Merton

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FROM THE PARALLEL SAYINGS

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Foxes have holes,

and the birds of the air have nests,

but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.

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Matthew 8:20

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The thoughtful exert themselves;

they do not delight in an abode.

Like swans who have left their lake

they leave their house and home.

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Dhammapada 7:2

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From Jesus and Buddha -

The Parallel Sayings

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